Blogging can be a great way to continually engage customers and keep them up to date with product changes or promotional sales. But in order to make your blog easy to read and a good experience for your followers and for any potential readers, you need to avoid several formatting blunders that can make you lose the reader. These errors include:

Tiny Font Size

Nothing will keep readers away like an excessively small font. If your blog is written with a font that is too small, it can cause readers to squint and focus hard to read it. This is uncomfortable and can cause them headaches and eye strain. No one’s going to become a regular reader if they have to continually lean in to figure out what you’re writing. In order to keep your readers, make sure your font is large enough to comfortably read. Make sure you test it on several different browsers to troubleshoot. Stick with a basic font as well – some computers and browsers can’t process different font types.

Lack of Paragraphs

Another common blog formatting blunder is lack of paragraphs. This is where the entire blog or a very large portion of it is just a chunk of text with no spaces. This is tedious and difficult to read, and many readers will lose interest in reading something formatted like this. Paragraphs with spaces between them are needed to help keep the interest of readers and to make the overall look of the website better. Studies have shown that most people skim what they find online and don’t actually read the entire article – so breaking your piece up with subheadings, bulleted or numbered lists and paragraphs will help them find exactly what they need quickly.

Way Too Many Formatting Types

When your blog is full of underlined text, italics, and bold text in almost every sentence, it can give your blog a choppy, ugly look. Doing this can really muddle the tone and mood of your article, and it’s hard for readers to smoothly read. To keep your readers and attract more, make sure to use italics, bold, and underlined text sparingly.

Overuse of Caps Lock

When blogging, it’s common for people to express their emotions or opinions on a matter in a strong way. A lot of bloggers may be tempted to overuse caps lock when trying to express themselves. This is not a good idea. Paragraphs full of uppercase letters take a lot longer to read, and reading a blog full of uppercase letters can even exasperate people as some of the anger or energy of the blog are unfortunately transferred to the reader. You can easily express yourself in any way without having to overuse caps lock.

Poor Choice of Text Color

Blogging is an enjoyable experience, and you should make sure reading the blog is just as enjoyable. Your readers don’t need to be attacked by a bright, neon color as bright as the sun. Don’t make your blog’s background any excessively bright colors, and don’t have text a bright or neon color, either. Moreover, text and background color need to work well together instead of fighting each other. For instance, avoid having white text on a bright yellow background; that will be almost impossible to read, and it’ll look unattractive as well.

Your blog should be a place where you can express yourself and connect with readers. In order to make their experience enjoyable and to keep more readers, avoid these common formatting blunders.